Language

FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT LANGUAGE - PAGE 2

At a time when most nations face chaos and instability due to diversity of religions and languages among their people, the U.S. is blessed with the two unifying attributes. One is her secular Constitution and the other is the English language. Anyone who wishes to change the status quo not simply wants to shake the strong foundation of this country but also seems careless about the future of this great nation. Therefore it was comforting to know that the U.S. Senate finally declared English as a national language.

Lately I keep seeing the words "blog" and "blogger" popping up in newsprint. Who started it anyway? I looked in my Roget's Thesaurus and my dictionary--they're not there anywhere. I know our English language is supposed to be dynamic to a degree, like incorporating the word "ain't" into our diction, but to drop a new word on us out of the blue is a little like dropping propaganda leaflets over London in World War II. What are they and who needs them? When I see the word "blog" appear, I can feel a seismological shudder and that shudder I know is my 8th grade English teacher, Miss Riddle, turning over in her grave.

Every weekend, Andrianna Panayiotou drives 30 miles from Hickory Hills to Niles to teach Chicago-area children the customs and language of Greece. In her classroom at St. Haralambos Greek Orthodox Church, a map of the Mediterranean country hangs on the wall beside the Greek alphabet. Panayiotou, 37, left her native country about 15 years ago but never discarded her culture. In addition to visiting Greece, Panayiotou's children are fluent in Greek. "We like to keep the connection between our country and our people here," Panayiotou said.

This is regarding Eric Zorn's June 10 column, "Fun at the old ballpark doesn't require f-word." "Civility." Most teenagers and 20-somethings have no clue as to what this word means. Zorn's experience at Wrigley Field with the group using the f-word as if it were common English is not unusual today. I was at Oakbrook Center mall recently when three teenage girls walked behind me. I was stunned at the foul language coming out of their mouths. I stopped, turned around and said to them, "If I were a young man, I would really want you three to be the mother of my children."

"Language is the archives of history. " — Ralph Waldo Emerson If Ralph Waldo Emerson and the American Dialect Society have it correct, the Sept. 11 attacks brought a nation together in language as they did in spirit at the outset of a decade that was ultimately defined more by talk of technology than of terror. Analysis of stories in 10 major U.S. newspapers since Sept. 11, 2001, shows an initial spike in the use of attack-related terms such as "terrorism" and "extremist," followed by a return to levels more reflective of the pre-9/11 world.

La Grange Elementary School District 102's world languages program has had a rocky rollout over the last two years, and the program now needs to be enhanced or dropped, trustees say. They reviewed the program, which has been implemented in kindergarten through sixth grade, to determine whether it should be expanded to junior high school next year at an added cost of about $75,000. The board opted at a recent meeting to gather more information and reconsider the program's fate in a month.

Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman's language skills have been in the spotlight since Saturday, when he said during a Republican presidential debate that his rival Mitt Romney does not understand U.S. relations with China — underscoring his point by saying so in Mandarin. Huntsman is a former U.S. ambassador to China who learned the language as a Mormon missionary in Taiwan in the late 1980s. His campaign says the former governor of Utah also speaks Hokkien, another Chinese dialect.